Anything You Can Do
by Cedony
Summary: FujiSyu x Mizu It's nearly time for graduation and Syuusuke and Mizuki are both accepted into their first choice school; Taisei University. Will they be able to put aside past differences for a brand new start?
1. 01

Anything You Can Do...

By: Cedony

Chapter One

"Aniki, mail's here!"

The sound of the chirpy pop-rock music video coming from the living room T.V set was cut off abruptly, and as he waited for his brother, Yuuta took care to set the thick envelope with the official looking seal on top of the heap of junk mail, right in the middle of the counter. That way, 'The Letter' would be the first thing that his brother would see when he stepped into the kitchen.

He knew that Syuusuke had been waiting a long time for it. Yuuta himself was curious about the contents, and had had a hard time resisting the urge to peek. But in spite of this curiosity, he turned his back on Syuusuke in a show of nonchalance as he entered the room. Yuuta even opened the refrigerator door and pretended to be fascinated by its contents.

There was a soft, breathy exclamation from his older brother, who had immediately noticed the envelope as he'd stepped inside the kitchen, just as Yuuta had hoped.

He whirled around at the sound, taking it as his cue to begin nosing in on his brother's business. Syuusuke's usually impassive face had given way to his rarely seen expression of excitement, which was to say that his narrow eyes had widened somewhat. "What is it, Aniki?" He asked as if he didn't already know. Syuusuke had swept the rest of the mail off the counter and onto the floor in his rush to get at the letter, and was holding it up triumphantly in the air.

'Good Luck, Syuusuke!' was scrawled across the front of the envelope in their sister's large, loopy handwriting, along with a pair of chibis flashing them encouraging toothy grins and thumbs up signs. She'd probably been the one to pick up the mail and take it into the kitchen, where she'd drawn her message on the envelope with what looked to be electric blue eyeliner.

"I finally got a letter from Taisei!" Syuusuke announced happily. Yuuta said a silent prayer of thanks to the gods for finally putting an end to his brother's months long agonizing. He tried to look appropriately surprised and encouraging at the same time, which resulted in a mildly deranged expression.

For months now he had been subjected to talk of Taisei University. Syuusuke had decided that that was the place for him after his impending graduation from Seigaku, and he had gone on about the school every opportunity that he got. Even after Yuuta had made a point of trying not to bring up subjects that were in any way related to Taisei University, Syuusuke had still somehow found ways to bring it up himself.

Needless to say, Yuuta was now pretty sick of hearing about how 'Taisei has one of the best sports programs in Tokyo, Taisei has a great academic record and great grounds and facilities'. It had gone on and on and on, until Yuuta finally forced himself to blank out whenever his brother started on the subject. That was the only thing that he could have done, short of actual violence.

Yuuta blamed it on Oishi Syuuichiro. His Aniki had had his heart set on Taisei University ever since Oishi had mentioned interest in applying there, and so following his team mate's lead, Syuusuke had sent off his own application several months before. Since then, he'd been anxiously awaiting a response, and Yuuta hoped that all that Taisei talk would stop, now that his older brother was finally getting an answer.

Watching the nervous way that his brother ran his hand over the envelope and seeing the little furrow between his brows that gave away his worry, Yuuta was unable to understand why Syuusuke appeared so apprehensive about opening the letter.

He had to know that he was a sure thing! Pretty much everyone thought so, and had been reassuring him of that. He hadn't been rejected by any other school that he'd applied to so far. He got good grades. And what coach in their right mind would pass up the opportunity to have one of Japan's rising young tennis stars in their team?

Obviously not Taisei's. The school's tennis club coach had already been in touch with Syuusuke, and had expressed great enthusiasm to the prospect of having him in his team. The man had enough sense to realize that they couldn't pass over Fuji Syuusuke, and if that wasn't an obvious indication that he could relax about his Taisei acceptance, then Yuuta had no idea what the hell it was that Syuusuke was waiting for.

"Open it." Yuuta suggested when his brother continued to simply stare at the envelope with a blank expression on his face. Just staring at that thing wasn't going to get them anywhere. He shut the fridge door and approached his brother. He even clapped a hand on his aniki's shoulder in a show of moral support, as he leaned in to give the envelope a closer look. "You know what they say about acceptance letters…"

"No. What?"

"That when it's all fat—like your one is—then it usually means that you've been accepted. It's 'cos they put in all of the forms and information stuff that you need to take care of before you register. If it's a rejection letter, then there should only be one sheet that says sorry, you didn't cut it." Yuuta elaborated.

That definitely made sense. Unless of course it was a really long 'you didn't cut it letter'. Syuusuke thoughtfully weighed the envelope in one hand. It was rather thick, as Yuuta had pointed out. Plus all of the other colleges that he'd tried for had said yes to his applications. Most had even offered further incentives like scholarships and special privileges if he agreed to attend their institution and play in their tennis teams.

Taisei was a sure thing for him. Yuuta had said so, his sister had said so, and so had Oishi and pretty much everyone else at Seigaku that he'd confided his Taisei aspirations to. He was a sure thing…so why did he feel so nervous? Why did he feel the need to rush off to the nearest temple and pray for the remainder of the day before he even opened the envelope? Maybe that would actually be a good idea…

"Should I wait for mom and dad before I open it?" Syuusuke wondered out loud. He eyed the letter doubtfully and made as if to set it back down onto the counter, but Yuuta stopped him, grabbing him by the wrist before he could do so.

"No!" He protested. He let go of Syuusuke. "Don't tell me that you're not dying to find out right now! You've been waiting for this letter for _months_, aniki! I've actually had to _listen_ to you going on about it the _whole time_! Just get it over with already." He paused.

Realizing how harsh he must have sounded, Yuuta made a conscious effort to soften his tone as he continued in a more reassuring manner. "We can't celebrate until we see the official 'Welcome to Daisen'," he pointed out. "I'm hungry. There's a cake in the fridge that mom told us not to touch…but I'm sure she won't mind if we celebrate this special occasion with it! Now open it already." He ordered authoritatively. He sounded like the domineering older brother in the relationship, which amused Syuusuke. Shouldn't he be the one acting all mature and confident, being the big brother an all?

He flashed Yuuta a grateful smile. It felt really good to have someone with him right now, lending him some much needed support. If he got a yes, then he'd have someone he loved to celebrate with. If he got a no, then at least Yuuta would be there to console him and listen to his ranting about how he'd be better off at another school anyway.

It was a good thing that time had finally healed the rift between them. Once Yuuta had come into his own, gotten older, created a niche for himself in the High School tennis circuit and stopped caring quite so much about what others thought, his older brother's successes had failed to bother him any longer.

Yuuta was his own person now, and was no longer resentful of his brother's achievements, as he now had his own impressive list of accomplishments to be proud of. He wasn't just Fuji Syuusuke's little brother anymore; he was Fuji Yuuta, another young talent to watch out for, and that recognition made him far more happier and more receptive to his older brother's shows of affection that he'd previously been.

A couple of years ago, Yuuta would never have draped an arm about Syuusuke's shoulders as he drew closer to watch his older brother open the envelope. He wouldn't even have bothered to stick around to see whether or not he'd made it in, because Yuuta used to act so indifferent to anything concerning his life. But now his younger brother's close proximity and his reassuring, familiar presence gave Syuusuke the courage to get along with the opening of the Taisei letter.

He carefully ripped the envelope open. Just on one side, so that he could keep his sister's good luck message and drawings intact. He wanted to save those.

To hell with it if he didn't get into Taisei. Sure, it was his first choice, but whether he got in or not, there were still plenty of other schools that wanted him, he had a great family, and a great brother. Great friends. Life was good.

Of course, there was still that niggling little voice at the back of his head that insisted life would be even better if he got into Taisei…

Which according to the letter, he did.

Syuusuke read through it a couple of more times, just to be certain, and each time it pretty much said the same thing. Congratulations. Accepted with a full athletic scholarship.

He continued to reread it until he felt a light pressure against his side. It was his brother. Yuuta had been reading the letter from over his shoulder and was now giving him a half-hug of congratulations. When Syuusuke finally looked up from the letter, it was to see Yuuta beaming down at him proudly.

"Congratulations Aniki!"

Still overwhelmed, Syuusuke could only respond with a slight nod of acknowledgment. But Yuuta was not at all put off by his brother's numb responses to his enthusiastic and heartfelt congratulations. Having grown quite a bit taller than Syuusuke by then, he patted his older brother on the top of his head as he eyed the fridge covetously. "Now why don't we go and break out the cake?"

"Guess what!"

"What?" Yuuta asked obediently and right on cue. As usual, he and Mizuki Hajime had met up after classes at the Shape Up fitness center. They always did that on days that Yuuta didn't have tennis practice. He'd had a hard time getting away from his brother that afternoon, though. Syuusuke was understandably excited about his acceptance, and had wanted Yuuta to stay with him to celebrate. Luckily he'd managed to get away after a while.

He and Mizuki had just finished changing out of their school uniforms and into their more comfortable gym clothes. Now Yuuta was stowing his folded clothing away into his locker as Mizuki rummaged around in his duffel bag. Yuuta watched him curiously, wondering what it was that the older boy wanted.

Eventually Mizuki drew something out, careful to keep whatever it was concealed by his body. "I've got something to show you." Mizuki announced. He gestured imperiously for Yuuta to turn around, so the younger boy obediently faced the other way, his back to his sempai.

Even now, months after Mizuki had given up his spot on the St. Rudolph tennis club, Yuuta and his other team mates still continued to follow his orders without the slightest hesitation. The former tennis club manager had been one of the many seniors who'd given up their club activities on their final term of High School in favor of focusing on his studies, but that still hadn't stopped Mizuki from continuing to rule over the team like a dictator in training.

He focused particularly on Yuuta, who'd been made the team captain. Mizuki was making sure that he learned to do things the way that he wanted him to while he was still around to bully the younger boy into it. He didn't want the St. Rudolph team to go to hell the moment that he wasn't around to supervise.

Mizuki trusted Yuuta, and believed that there was no better man for the job, but he still thought that the younger boy needed all the help that he could provide. After all, he knew how to run the tennis team better than anybody else out there.

There was the rustling of cloth against cloth and the sound of a zipper being done up. From those auditory clues, Yuuta guessed that Mizuki only wanted to show him a new designer workout suit that he'd just bought for a ridiculous amount of money. He did that a lot, so Yuuta had come to expect it every now and then.

The last one that he'd shown off had been colored a bright metallic silver that had hurt Yuuta's eyes when Mizuki had positioned himself under direct light. It would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but it was Mizuki wearing it, and somehow he hadn't ended up looking like an intergalactic aerobics instructor.

Over the years that Yuuta had known him, his sempai had developed an off beat sense of style that was now imitated by many in their school. The thirteen year old that had gotten more than a few taunts for taking experimentations with his looks too far into unconventional directions had turned into a trendsetter.

Mizuki followed the outlandish Tokyo street fashions religiously, but with certain added individual touches that made them distinctly his. Clothes fit his slim, athletic frame well, so pretty much anything looked good on him, and his job at a popular clothing store kept him well supplied with new outfits. The young designer who owned it had taken an instant liking to him and saw him as something of a walking advertisement, which in a way he really was. There was just something about Mizuki that drew attention to him; the way he dressed, his feathery, perfectly styled hair, the way he carried himself.

He was an attractive young man, who moved, and approached everything with such self-assurance and confidence that he never failed to impress (or annoy) people that he encountered.

Once he'd finished with last minute preparations, Mizuki came up behind Yuuta, only stopping when he was standing right behind him. "Turn around," he instructed.

Yuuta did as he was asked, as usual, and saw purple. A lot of it. Whatever it was that he was wearing was a mass of vivid purple edged by yellow. Mizuki had always been fond of that color, but the jacket that he had on didn't seem to be his usual style. It looked like one of their tennis club jackets, only in different colors, and Mizuki had always moaned about how hideous those shit brown monstrosities had been, and how offensive they were to the eyes.

"It's very…nice." Better not mention the purple Teletubby and his amazing resemblance to it right now. Mizuki was sure to take that the wrong way. And now that he was looking at it more closely, trying to figure out what had convinced his usually infallibly stylish sempai to buy that jacket; Yuuta began to feel as though he'd seen that particular design and eye offending color combination before.

It was when Mizuki finally pivoted around to give him a view of the back that Yuuta remembered where he'd previously seen it. Emblazoned on the back in big yellow Romanized letters was the word 'Taisei'. That was the big give away.

His Aniki had one. Their sister had bought it for him in anticipation of his acceptance into Taisei University, and had given it to him that afternoon, once she'd gotten the good news. How could he forget that when Syuusuke had made such a big production of thanking their sister and trying it on?

Mizuki also owning one could only mean one thing, because his sempai definitely hadn't bought it for purely aesthetic reasons. In fact, under normal circumstances, Mizuki would have burned that jacket and anyone in it the moment he laid eyes on it.

Yuuta's eyes widened and he shifted uneasily on his feet. He was _very_ uncomfortable with the thought of his brother and Mizuki being anywhere _near_ each other. It was bound to result in many interesting, but explosive situations, and he simply couldn't picture his brother and his sempai together in one school, let alone in one tennis club.

_But this could be so amusing_…The little devil that still remained in Yuuta, the part that was still amused by his brother's discomfort up until then, pointed out. "Taisei." He declared flatly. He wasn't going to laugh, no matter how much he wanted to, because then Mizuki would want to know what was up with him, and he didn't want to be the one to tell him about his brother's acceptance into the same school, or about the full athletic scholarship that Syuusuke had been offered. That would piss Mizuki off, and Yuuta didn't have the energy or the nerves to deal with that right now.

Mizuki nodded. He smoothed the front of his jacket down, noted the strange expression on the younger boy's face but and brushed it off. Yuuta was probably just upset by the thought of not having him around any longer. How flattering that the boy had come to depend on him so much! But sadly Yuuta was just going to have to get used to it. "I got accepted into their Fashion Design program," he announced.

This got the proper and anticipated response from Yuuta; a lot of congratulations and back slapping, assurances that he was going to do great. Mizuki allowed himself to bask in the glow of his friend's attention, beaming happily as the younger boy wrapped him in a warm, brotherly hug. Yuuta was the first one that he'd told after his own family, mainly because he knew that his friend would be happy for him.

Not many people knew of Mizuki's decision to pursue a career in fashion. Everyone automatically assumed that he would want to make a living out of tennis because his skills in that sport were more to the forefront than his art, and he hadn't ruled tennis out of his future; he just wanted to try something different for now.

Yuuta was one of the few people that he'd confided his interest in clothes design to. He'd even shown the younger boy some of his art work, drawings and sketches of anything ranging from a young man in the street that had caught his eye, to the banana that Yuuta had had in his lunch box one day, and so he knew that Mizuki had a gift. It made sense for him to incorporate that talent with his love for clothing. What had really taken Yuuta by surprise was his application to Taisei. He'd been under the impression that Mizuki had had his heart set on Tokyo University.

"You never even told me that you wanted to try for Taisei," He finally voiced his puzzlement.

"Well, they have a really good fashion design program. But I met with a bit of opposition about my career choice when I mentioned applying there, so I decided not to mention it to _anyone_ again until I actually get accepted." Mizuki admitted.

That was only to be expected, Yuuta thought. He didn't think his own father would like him taking up something like 'fashion design', not only because it wasn't something that men usually did, but also because it was a highly competitive career where you had to really excel and stand out in order to make any money. A very select few were able to make their fortunes from it. Besides, Yuuta's drawing skills were reminiscent of a toddler's that had just learned to hold onto crayons. "Your dad didn't like the idea?" the younger boy asked.

But Mizuki shook his head. "It was my mom. She doesn't think it's a manly profession." He shrugged it away dismissively, and it was obvious to Yuuta from Mizuki's tone that his mother's protests hadn't concerned him in the slightest. Gender lines had never mattered to him. He was all in favor of getting in touch with his more feminine side—no matter what anyone thought—because girls got to do all the fun stuff that guys didn't. Why should he miss out just because he'd been born the wrong sex? He liked looking good and taking care of himself.

"Are they going to be letting you go?" Yuuta asked curiously. There were few people in the gym locker room with them, so he felt comfortable enough to continue the conversation in there. He sat down onto the long bench before his locker, glad for an excuse to delay their rigorous workout routine.

"Of course they're letting me go!" Mizuki had had to do a lot of fast talking to convince his mother, but he seemed to have managed it. His dad had helped a lot too, pointing out in his soft-spoken way that this was their son's life to lead, that this was his choice to make and that their job as his parents were to support him in whatever it was that he chose to do.

As he'd been preparing to meet up with Yuuta, his father had even taken him aside and told him that he was proud of him, that he knew that he was going to succeed in the field that he chose. That validation from him had touched Mizuki greatly, and only encouraged him to do everything that he could to make him worthwhile of that faith. Of course he knew that his mother wouldn't have given up yet, and was preparing himself to do some more major convincing once he got back home.

"So you're going to be going to Taisei." Yuuta said. He drew his leg up onto the bench and began to double tie his shoe laces. He still couldn't get his mind around that idea and he didn't know what he was supposed to feel about that.

He was glad for Mizuki, because he was getting what he wanted. He deserved it, after all the hard work that he'd put into his studies all through high school. But he was also nervous about having to deal with tennis club business on his own, and sad that one of his closest friends from school wasn't going to be as readily available to him anymore.

Yuuta still surprised himself sometimes when he began to think of the older boy as one of his best friends. Who would have thought that he'd grow so fond of the domineering prat over the years? But that was precisely what Mizuki had become. He was bossy and overbearing, nosy and ridiculously vain, but Yuuta enjoyed being with him a majority of the time that they spent together.

_In spite of his snippiness_, Yuuta reminded himself as Mizuki flashed him a 'You're being an incredible idiot' look.

"Yes Yuuta; Taisei. That's what I've been trying to tell you for the last few minutes." Mizuki replied peevishly. Was he trying to be purposely dense today? He wanted to celebrate, and Yuuta was being completely uncooperative. But the boy made things up to him by flashing him a bright smile that made it clear that he was happy about his sempai's good fortune.

"That's great, Mizuki-sempai!" Yuuta enthused. Not only was he happy about his friend's success, but the thought of Mizuki in Taisei definitely made for some very interesting prospects. He knew that he was supposed to be all nice to his brother, now that he'd finally gotten past all that childish jealousy, but he couldn't quite suppress the mischievous glee that he felt at the thought of some very fun confrontations between his sempai and his older brother.

Relations between Syuusuke and Mizuki hadn't improved over time, as the brother's own had, and their stubbornness over it had frustrated and annoyed Yuuta.

If he could get over the stupid little rivalry that he'd had going on with his brother, then why couldn't theyfollow his example and forget about their own dispute?

He'd already forgiven Mizuki for being so thoughtless and uncaring for his wellbeing, and the older boy had changed. Why should Syuusuke hold something that Mizuki had done to _him_ against his sempai when he himself had already forgiven his team mate for it?

And as for Mizuki, he should learn to control the inferiority complex that plagued him every time he was around Syuusuke. It was insane. He didn't feel the need to constantly prove himself when he was around any other person. He only seemed to lose his self-confidence and innate cockiness whenever Syuusuke was thrown into the picture.

_Aniki's__ always had a way of making other people feel inferior to him, and without any effort either! _Yuuta thought dryly. _He's just so damn _perfect_. No wonder he used to piss me off so much! If he can have this kind of effect on someone who loves himself as much as Mizuki-sempai does, then it's obvious that my self-esteem never stood a chance…_

Although there had never been another major conflict between them since that match over Mizuki's treatment of Yuuta, the two had made a point of ignoring each other.

Once in a while, when they met up at the street courts, Mizuki would direct a thinly veiled insult towards Syuusuke that the Seigaku player would ignore. And occasionally Syuusuke would say something completely innocent (or something that _seemed_ completely innocent) that would set Mizuki off, but those incidents had always been quickly controlled by the others around them.

If there was someone around to keep things from escalating, and if they weren't together too often or for too long then things would be fine. But what would happen, now that they were going to be attending the same University?

Taisei was a big place, and they were going to be taking up different majors, but of course, there was tennis. Neither of them were about to give that up. There was only one tennis team in the school, and there would be no avoiding each other in a close knit sports team.

They were going to have to learn to deal with each other. They would _have_ to. And that was a good thing, Yuuta finally decided after quite a bit of thought. Mizuki was a great guy, and so was Syuusuke. It was about time that they got past the little squabble that they'd had over him years ago. He was sick of having to defend his sempai whenever his brother made a comment about him, and vice versa.

He debated with himself over whether or not he should mention his brother's similar acceptance to Mizuki but one look at the older boy helped him decide against it.

There was such a blissfully happy expression on Mizuki's face that Yuuta had never seen before. He liked seeing that. It made Mizuki look so vibrant and just…sweet. He wouldn't be a good friend if he did anything to take this moment away from Mizuki.

_I'll warn him later_, Yuuta decided. _I'll just let him celebrate for now. Maybe I can even get a free burger out of this… _


	2. 02

Anything You Can Do…

By: Cedony

Chapter Two

In spite of his brother's incredibly useless directions and his best efforts to prevent him from succeeding, it hadn't taken Syuusuke too long to find the Shape Up Fitness Center.

It was on the second floor of a nondescript building, sandwiched right between a flower shop and a used book store. He would have missed it completely if it weren't for the little banner hanging out one window, which was probably just what Yuuta had been hoping for.

He obviously didn't want his brother to find the place, and he'd been very suspicious about Syuusuke's sudden interest when he'd started asking about the gym's location. To him that was the equivalent of a siren going off, announcing that Syuusuke was up to something that he wouldn't like. It screamed of an Evil, Manipulative Syuusuke Plot. Consequently, all that Yuuta had been willing to tell him was that it was 'somewhere near St. Rudolph', and Syuusuke had had to work ridiculously hard to get even _that_ much.

'Somewhere near St. Rudolph' was a pretty general set of directions that left him _too_ much to work with. But nothing could stop Fuji Syuusuke once he'd set his mind on something; even Yuuta's stubborn uncooperativeness. He was used to that, and could live with it. It really got him going, like the promise of a tall, cold glass of Inui's special juice did to his team mates. So in the end, it was actually a good thing, and in spite of the minor roadblock that his lack of information presented, he'd set out to find the place, determined to do precisely what his brother had tried to dissuade him from the day before.

Yuuta had managed to drag it all out of him. The first question out of his mouth when Syuusuke had begun his subtle information gathering was "What are you up to, Aniki?" There had been a very suspicious, slightly resigned look on his face that he didn't even bother to disguise.

He wanted his older brother to know that he _knew_ something was happening, or was about to happen; something that involved the gym that he frequented, and he was smart enough to know that there was only one thing that his Aniki would find of interest there: a very irritable, very touchy Mizuki Hajime who loathed Syuusuke even more than he did designer knock off clothing and hair gunk that didn't hold up to the test of time.

Syuusuke had tried to give Yuuta the run around, insisting that his questions didn't have anything to do with Mizuki. He only wanted to know about the place where Yuuta spent so much of his time, he had reassured him. But persistence was a Fuji family trait. Yuuta could be every bit as pushy as his bullheaded older brother was, maybe even more so at times, and after some more prodding, Syuusuke finally confessed that he did in fact want to see Mizuki. 'To say hi!' he'd explained, looking suspiciously innocent and wide-eyed, another tell-tale sign that Yuuta shouldn't believe a single word coming out of his mouth.

It was a weak excuse that no one who actually knew the history between Syuusuke and Mizuki would believe for even a second. Yuuta had been horrified by the possibility of an unsupervised meeting between his brother and his sempai. He knew for a fact that Mizuki would say much more than 'hi!' to his brother if he turned up unexpectedly at what his team mate viewed to be his private sanctum.

He should never have told his brother about Mizuki and Taisei. He'd made the mistake of spilling it all out when Syuusuke had revealed that Oishi would also be joining him at the prestigious college, and he'd been regretting the slip up ever since it happened, because since then he'd just been waiting for the shit to hit the proverbial fan. Now it looked like it finally had, and guess who the first one to get well splattered was?

It was time for some damage control. "Why do you want to go see him? You _hate_ him!" He reminded him, just in case Syuusuke had somehow forgotten that minor detail.

"I don't _hate_ him. Hate is too strong a word, and I actually hate very few things. Like…I hate the smell in our locker room. _Especially_ when it's been a hot day. And I definitely hate the way Momo sweats so much. You should see the way that it just _rolls_ off of him, Yuuta! And when he hugs me-"

Yuuta had interrupted his brother before he could go into any further detail about the hugging between sweaty teen boys in the Seigaku locker room. That was _not_ a pretty picture. No. Definitely not, and he just _didn't want to know_. What they all did in their private time was none of his business. There could be a mini-orgy going on at Seigaku, and he wouldn't care. Really.

Besides, he had recognized his brother's diversion tactic. Syuusuke was bringing up weird things to make him uncomfortable and to send him running. Well it wasn't going to work this time! He'd stopped feeling embarrassed about discussing sexual matters with Syuusuke a long time ago, because he'd recognized that his Aniki only did that when he wanted to steer him away from something, which was what he had been trying to do then.

"Why do you want to talk to him, Aniki?" He had persisted. He'd raised his voice to drown out Syuusuke's story of a sweaty Kikumaru and sweaty Echizen talcum powdering each other. He raised it again even higher once Syuusuke got to the part about Kikumaru pulling Echizen's pants down just a little, so that he could get at the 'smooth, baby fine skin at the small of Echizen's back, right where the buttocks began to swell and curve.' In the very off chance that his brother failed to succeed in tennis, it was good to know that Syuusuke could at least always fall back on writing soft porn novels set in the boy's locker room. "Are you going to try to force him into _not_ going to Taisei?"

He had stopped talking about the secret goings on within the Seigaku tennis club just long enough to answer. "I think he's more likely to do that than I am," he had pointed out. And Yuuta had had to admit that he was probably right. Syuusuke was more likely to wear a person down into doing what he wanted than he was actually forcing someone into it. A show of force was really more Mizuki's style. Syuusuke's was constant needling, wearing down and manipulation, which Mizuki himself resorted to at times, but only when he was bored and felt like he needed some fun.

After that, Yuuta had kept his mouth shut and refused to give Syuusuke any more information about the gym's whereabouts. Then he had spent the whole night begging his brother not to do anything mean or upsetting to Mizuki, which Syuusuke had hurried to reassure him he wouldn't.

He was a much nicer person than his brother gave him credit for, and he had no intention of complicating matters between him and Mizuki, but Yuuta hadn't trusted him in spite of his sincerity. It was clear on his expression. He refused to believe that Syuusuke could forget about years of hostility in an instant.

What he couldn't understand was that all bad feeling that Syuusuke had had for Mizuki had faded a long time ago, once he'd seen the way that he begun to take care of Yuuta.

Their little spats since the change was—on his part at least—nothing more than a bit of friendly verbal sparring, something that he found amusing and fun, because Mizuki was a witty, very opinionated guy who had no qualms about letting his feelings be known. He had made a mistake in thinking that Mizuki wouldn't take things that had been said and done to heart. The guy was obviously far too much of a drama queen for that. Now that he understood that, he was just going to have to be much more careful about what he said and did.

He was going to make things right, and as it turned out, luck was on his side and his lack of directions wasn't that much of a set back. All he'd had to do was google "The Shape Up Fitness Center". It had taken him a while to find the actual building that housed the gym because it was so out of the way, but once he'd asked a couple of buff looking guys in St. Rudolph uniforms where the gym was, he was easily able to find it going by what they told him.

He paid the cute lady manning the front desk the gym fee upon entering, reassured her that he wouldn't be needing a membership because this was a one time visit when she asked, and proceeded inside. As an afterthought, he retraced his steps and politely hung back until the reception lady had finished her conversation with a beefy looking man. Syuusuke only approached the desk once the man had gone away and the girl flashed him a friendly smile, her signal to approach.

"Hi again!" she chirped, setting aside the piece of paper that she had been scribbling on.

"Hi." He smiled at her, "I'm actually just looking for a…friend of mine, and I was wondering if you could tell me where he might be at.". The gym was far bigger than it had looked from the outside; it occupied two stories of the building with many different rooms and long, maze-like corridors. He didn't want to waste any time, and thought it would be far easier to ask, just in case she did know. Mizuki and Yuuta were regulars here, so this girl must have seen them plenty of times before and must know who they were. "His name's Mizuki Hajime. Maybe you know him? He comes here everyday."

He mentally began to come up with some sort of physical description of Mizuki, just in case the girl couldn't place his name. Snotty, prissy looking, all dolled up like a catholic school boy gone bad (which in a way, Syuusuke guessed he was) and a face that looked as though he'd just sucked on a lemon. Hmm…he couldn't say that. He was supposed to be a friend of Mizuki's. He had to think of something nice…

After a bit more consideration, he realized that he didn't even know whether the mental image that he had of the guy was up to date. It had been several months since Syuusuke had last seen him. The picture of Mizuki that he had in his head couldn't be that reliable anymore if Mizuki was as mercurial about his looks as Yuuta claimed he was.

The girl beamed at him as she clapped her hands together. "Ah! You're a friend of Mizuki-kun's!" Her apparent glee at the mere mention of Mizuki Hajime completely baffled Syuusuke, who just smiled and nodded, seeing no other way that he could respond. "He has such a lot of cute friends!" she gushed, giving Syuusuke that strange, half-lidded 'I'm checking you out, even though I'm really not supposed to' look that he got a lot from older women who had a thing for younger, barely-legal 'men'.

He let her look. There was no harm in that. Better warn Yuuta to watch out for this woman, though. "Yes. Ah…Mizuki-kun. He's a senior at St. Rudolph High School," he elaborated. This girl seemed to like Mizuki Hajime. A lot.

"Oh, I know that!" She reassured him hurriedly. She leaned forward, unintentionally, or maybe _intentionally_, giving Fuji a good view of her chest in her low cut tank top. "I saw him coming in today. He had the cutest new hairstyle! And I'm going to see if I can get my boyfriend to get _his_ hair cut the same way. Anyway, just go down the hall over there and into the last door. Mizuki-kun likes working out there, since there are less people. That's your best bet!"

He thanked her, making his way down the hallway that she'd indicated. He put a little bit more into his walk than he usually did, and when he looked back, it was to see the girl still watching him avidly, proving that women were just as bad as men when it came to objectifying the opposite sex.

Laughing softly to himself, Fuji strolled down the hallway, occasionally looking into rooms just to see what the layout to the place was. It was really sort of funny how he'd gone for months without even thinking of Mizuki Hajime, to him now having this irresistible urge to see him.

Yuuta telling him not to do something had always had this sort of effect on him. It just made him want to do whatever it was even more, but not out of spite. He was really not a spiteful person, but more of a closet control freak. He chose to not listen to him to show Yuuta that his big brother knew what he was up to. It was his way of driving in the point that big brother knew best. Which he did, Syuusuke reassured himself as he stepped into the room that the reception girl had told him to look in. He was only doing what he had to do so that his time at Taisei would be as comfortable and fun as possible.

His baby brother meant more to him than anyone else in the world, and anything that was important to Yuuta was also important to Syuusuke, because that's how things were supposed to be when you loved someone.

Mizuji Hajime, for reasons unbeknownst and not clearly evident to Syuusuke, had become one of Yuuta's important people. It was clear from the way that his brother talked of him, and how he'd been so defensive on Mizuki's behalf when he'd been trying to keep what he thought of as an uncomfortable confrontation between the two of them from happening.

It made him wonder if Yuuta would ever defend him like that against anyone. Knowing his big hearted little brother, he probably would, but it still made him feel mildly jealous that anyone else could figure so largely in Yuuta's life.

Syuusuke stood by the doorway as he surveyed the room. The girl was right; there _were_ very few people in there. There was only a young couple off to one side using a seated leg press machine. The guy, rather handsome in an over muscled sort of way, was spotting the girl as she whined through her exercise in a high, breathy voice.

With little effort he was able to find Mizuki, who'd positioned himself right next to a mirror lined wall, no doubt so that he could watch himself as he exercised. He was bent over backwards on a large silver body ball doing ab crunches, and his Taisei jacket was spread out on the ground beside him.

In spite of his position, with his back arched and his head pointing towards the floor, his hair still managed to defy the laws of gravity as he slowly worked his trunk upwards. It had been cut in a many layered style with side swept bangs, and Mizuki had flattened the hair to the sides of his head with rows of crossed bobby pins that were the same lime green as his workout pants, then styled what had been left free so that they stuck out in seemingly random directions

The end result was cute; it made him look like an anime character brought to life, but what was the point in fixing up your hair like that when you were just going to school and the gym? Mizuki's hairstyle was about as practical for working out as using a ping-pong paddle in a match against Tezuka would have been. It was all useless, really. Mizuki should stop wasting his time bothering with things like that. He wasn't bad to look at, even without all the trimmings…

_And I can't believe that I just thought that_…But even as this crossed Syuusuke's mind, his eyes had already begun to rake over Mizuki's flat, perfectly toned but not too overdeveloped stomach. His shirt had hiked up, exposing quite an eyeful; and he was not too bad to look at _at__ all_.

Thankfully the Boyfriend approached Mizuki then, leaving his girlfriend sitting on the machine that she'd been working out on and snapping Syuusuke out of his appreciative appraisal of his long time 'enemy'.

Mizuki sat up on the ball as Boyfriend squatted down beside him so that he could be at eye level with him; he even _smiled_ up at his visitor, so obviously they knew each other pretty well.

Syuusuke had never seen him do that before. The closest that Mizuki had ever gotten to smiling around him was that evil smirk that he got on his face whenever he was up to something, or was scribbling away in his data notebook. Seeing that was almost as strange as he imagined seeing Echizen in his fangirl's cheerleading outfit would have been. Not that he'd ever tried to picture that in his mind, of course. That one time had been a weird, weird day dream caused by Momoshiro's comments.

Boyfriend patted the body ball, and Mizuki nodded, before launching into a long, involved speech about…something. Syuusuke couldn't hear anything from where he was standing. Mizuki talked some more, demonstrated a couple of exercises on the ball, and then said something to make Boyfriend laugh.

Interesting. When not around—or aware of—his presence, Mizuki appeared calm, approachable. Almost…_charming_. This just wreaked havoc on all the impressions that Syuusuke had of the guy. It intrigued him. Did he really piss Mizuki off _that_ much? He had to, in able to cause such drastic behavioral changes with his mere presence. Finally Boyfriend patted Mizuki on the shoulder, before going back to the girl.

The whole interchange had taken less than five minutes, but it entirely altered Syuusuke's view point of his brother's friend. He needed to investigate this, and so he approached Mizuki, who'd already gone back to doing his exercises.

Mizuki didn't notice him until he actually spoke. Syuusuke picked up the jacket, holding it up before him. "Hey! That's funny. I have one of these too!" He exclaimed as if surprised.

Mizuki looked up at the sound of the voice. Lots of St. Rudolph students went to the Shape Up Fitness Center because it was more well equipped than their school gym and was the closest one around campus. It wasn't uncommon for someone that he vaguely recognized from school to come up and ask him about what exercises they should be doing to work out a particular muscle group; he was considered an expert on such things. Naturally, since this had already happened so many times in the past, he assumed that whoever had just approached him was just someone looking for advice. Instead, he locked eyes with the person that he least expected to see standing over him in _his_ gym.

With an outraged gasp, Mizuki struggled to sit up, which wasn't a good idea. As he did so, the ball rolled out from right under him, sending him flat on his tail bone with a loud yell. The thin mat cushioning the floor did little to soften his fall.

Fuji was on him immediately, leaning over him so that his light brown hair dangled limply over Mizuki's face. "Are you all right?"

"Yes!" Mizuki snapped. He slapped away the hand that Fuji automatically offered him as he shifted to a more comfortable position for his aching ass. He soon found that there was none, and just sat still. This was not the way that he wanted a meeting with Fuji to start_ at all_. After that _marvelous_ first reaction to his unannounced visit, he felt infuriatingly out of control of the situation, as though he'd given Fuji the upper hand somehow, and he hated that. So to compensate, he was just going to have to be as obnoxious as humanly possible.

Mizuki shoved the body ball away, sending it rolling across the room away from him. For a while he'd considered throwing it at Fuji's head, but the ball was filled with air. It couldn't do that much damage. Where were the heavy weights? He took a deep breath, counted to three, and once assured that he'd regained his composure, looked up to give Fuji the benefit of his most malevolent glare. "Can you tell me what the hell you're doing here?"

"I was looking for you."

"Well, Yuuta's not here. He's at practice and-" Wait. Did he just say 'I was looking for _you'_? That didn't make any sense at all. Fuji should be looking for his _brother_. After a pause he asked, "You were looking for _me_?" Just to make sure that he wasn't beginning to hear things.

Fuji nodded. "How are you, Mizuki-san? Can I sit here?" He pointed to the floor right in front of Mizuki. The expression alone on the guy's face was worth the commute. He looked floored by what was coming out of Fuji's mouth, but seemed to recover from his shock when Fuji made a move to sit without his consent.

He pointed to the other side of the room, towards the doorway. "It'd actually be easier for me to ignore you if you're over_ there_. Better yet, you could always just leave." He suggested hopefully.

"But what would be the fun in that?" Fuji smilingly returned. He sat down, watching Mizuki closely for his reaction. The St. Rudolph student scowled, but said and did nothing else about it. He had to admit that he was just a little bit curious about Fuji Syuusuke's unexpected appearance.

"You didn't come all the way here just to ask me how I am." He would die of shock if that was actually the only thing that Fuji had in his mind. There had to be something else; some dark, evil purpose to this visit. "Just get to the point. I want to go back to my exercises soon." He scooted backwards until he was leaning against the mirrored wall. His proximity to his friend's brother was making him uncomfortable; he wanted to put as much distance between them as he could, without appearing to be running away. Thankfully his unexpected visitor made no move to close the gap between them.

He thought back on the last couple of weeks, wondering if he'd done anything particularly bad to Yuuta that would cause his fanatical older brother to go after him. But he'd been very nice to him lately. He'd even bought him a Happy Meal the day before! Sure, he'd grabbed the small plastic panda toy that had come with it because it was cute and he'd paid for it, hadn't he? But Yuuta wouldn't send his brother after him for that!

…or would he?

"Is this about the panda?" Mizuki blurted out, not knowing what else it could be. It was a ridiculous thought, but he'd known Fuji Syuusuke to do crazy things on his brother's behalf before.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Fuji replied after a short pause to think the question over. He gave Mizuki a strange look. "I just came to congratulate you! I heard about Taisei from Yuuta."

And what the hell was Yuuta doing telling his brother about _that_? Mizuki wondered. What possible interest could Fuji Syuusuke have in where he went to college? He didn't think Fuji needed to break the silence between them just to congratulate him. They weren't even friends! Hell, they weren't even on speaking terms most of the time, which was what made this so bizarre.

Then, after the initial shock of finding out that Fuji knew and even _cared _for some reason, Mizuki got angry. He felt betrayed by Yuuta. He knew that the younger boy felt a certain sense of loyalty to him, but obviously his ties with his brother were a lot stronger, and meant more to him. "He had no business talking to you about me!" He complained. Yuuta was going to have a _lot_ of explaining to do. He was heading straight for the younger boy's dorm room once he got back on campus.

Once he realized that he'd gotten Mizuki mad at his brother, Fuji attempted to explain. "He didn't do it on purpose. He just let it slip accidentally."

That made Mizuki feel slightly better, because to him that meant that Yuuta wasn't trying to hurt him on purpose when he'd told Fuji his news. He should have expected this from him. He knew the kid. There wasn't a single malicious bone in his body, and he was a great guy, but when it came to standing up against his older brother, Yuuta had the back bone of a one week old fetus. Syuusuke must have forced it out of him somehow. But why the sudden interest in him? That was what he couldn't understand.

_I have one of these too…_

Fuji had been holding his Taisei jacket when he'd said that, but he couldn't possibly mean _that_. No. That was such an ugly prospect. He had to ask, so that he could relax once he found out that he was only being paranoid. "You're graduating too," he noted, "Where are _you_ going?"

"Same place as you," Fuji revealed, his smile gone sickeningly sweet, his eyes surprisingly warm. He acted as though that actually pleased him. Like _hell_. He leaned forward towards Mizuki, his body language oozing friendliness that _had_ to be fake. Then he was patting him on the knee which was just disturbing. He couldn't even get himself together enough to tell Fuji to cut it out with the touching. "That's why I thought I should get to know you."

The patting stopped without Mizuki having to resort to violent means. Thankfully. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea of Fuji Syuusuke in the same tennis team as him, because this guy was obviously going to be joining, and he had no intention of giving tennis up either. How was that going to work when they couldn't even stay in the same street court with some sort of argument brewing between the two of them?

"I don't want anything to do with this." He wanted to get that out there right from the very beginning. His plans to out-obnoxious Fuji Syuusuke had failed because there was just no topping him in that department.

How could he just waltz in here after years of crap and announce that he 'wanted to get to know him'? That was just plain stupid. Did he expect Mizuki to launch himself into his arms, crying about how he'd been waiting for this opportunity for the longest time? That wasn't going to happen.

They weren't going to suddenly become best friends just because Fuji wanted them to be. Maybe things like that happened in Fuji's happy little world where everyone worshipped him and let him pretty much walk all over them like so much tennis court turf beneath his precious, Nike clad feet, but Mizuki was not about to help his little delusion along.

He refused to be Astroturf.

"I congratulated you. Aren't you going to congratulate me?" Fuji prodded. "I wonder why Yuuta didn't tell you about my Taisei scholarship. He kept on talking about how he wanted the two of us to get on with each other, now that we're going to be attending the same school. You'd think he'd at least mention it to you or give you the same speeches that he gave to me!"

It was obvious to Mizuki why Yuuta had left that important bit of information out, and he didn't know whether he should be touched that the younger boy had considered his feelings, or be mad at him for keeping this from him.

Yuuta didn't tell him about the Taisei scholarship because he'd known that it would take away from his happiness over his own acceptance. There was nothing like knowing that your old rival had one upped you once again to spoil the happiness that you felt over your own success. Yuuta had understood that, and had wanted to give him at least a little while to be completely and utterly happy. But he was still pissed at the kid in spite of the fact that he knew Yuuta had had good intentions behind what he'd done. He _hated_ being thrown out of the loop.

He used to be so good at keeping an eye on what went on with everyone involved in the district tennis circuit, but he'd really let his information gathering skills go over the last few months so that he could focus on school. That had obviously been a bad idea.

"Are you going to be trying out for the team?"

Mizuki opened his mouth to reply, but afraid that his voice would give away how upset and off balance he really felt, he simply nodded.

If Fuji noticed that anything was bothering him, then he wasn't making it obvious. At least he wasn't showing any outward signs of being pleased by Mizuki's discomfort. "I thought you would. I'm only asking because I noticed that you weren't around any of the competitions this semester. Yuuta told me you'd quit temporarily."

"Apparently Yuuta tells you a lot of things," Mizuki muttered. He wasn't very happy about that at all, and he was going to have a _lot_ to say to the younger boy once he got back to school.

"I guess we're going to be seeing a lot of each other now," Fuji remarked, steering the conversation away from his younger brother as soon as he could. Yuuta was probably already deep in Mizuki's shit list. He didn't want to make things any worse for his brother than they already were.

"I guess so." He sounded as enthusiastic about the idea as a person planning the details to his own funeral.

"Yuuta said that we might as well get used to each other already."

"I'd really rather not."

"I don't mind either way," Fuji said generously. "It'd be hard for us to ignore each other if we're on the same tennis team. We might even end up attending the same classes. What course are you taking?"

"Fashion design." Mizuki said, his tone defiant. Some guys might think that career choice strange, but he had nothing to be ashamed of. He was proud of it. He watched Fuji's face closely, waiting for him to say something, for some sort of reaction, but he saw none. That was a big disappointment, since he was just waiting for Fuji to _do anything_, _say anything, that_ would give him a reason to punch him or to start an argument. He waited a bit more, then asked impatiently "Well, aren't you going to start laughing now?"

"Why should I?" Fuji asked, looking genuinely puzzled.

Mizuki was surprised and thrown off balance by Fuji passing up the opportunity to make fun of him, as some others had. He'd been expecting _some_ sort of comment, and felt cheated by Fuji's refusal to follow the expected set of behavior that Mizuki had for him. He really wanted an argument, and for some reason, Fuji was going out of the way to keep things between them at least moderately civil.

"Are you going to be going to the orientation tomorrow?" Fuji asked as the silence dragged on. The next day was a Saturday and Taisei was having an open day for all of the incoming freshmen so that they could check the facilities out and orient themselves somewhat before registration week began.

"Yes."

"Good. I'll see you then, Mizuki san. I'll be going with Oishi, but if you'd like, we can all check out the tennis courts together."

Unsettled by the whole business and the invitation, Mizuki got to his feet, wanting only to get away from Fuji. He walked over to the nearby exercise bikes and sat himself down on one, thinking that Fuji's visit was already done with. He needed to clear his mind and just space out for a while. Exercise always did that for him. He didn't expect Fuji to actually follow him, but he did. He'd thought their conversation was over, but Fuji took the bike right next to Mizuki.

Mizuki glared at him, chose not to say anything, and then began to pedal. He closed his eyes. He was going to relax. He was going to focus on his exercise, on his breathing, on setting up a nice, steady pace. Beside him Fuji did the same.

"This is nice. I haven't been on one of these for a while…" The whirring of the wheels increased. Mizuki looked over to see Fuji's feet working madly on the pedals.

Trying to show off again? Not about to be beaten by Mr. Perfect, Mizuki also increased his pace so that he was going faster than Fuji. When he'd gotten to a very good speed, he caught Fuji's eye and flashed him a triumphant smirk. Beat _that_, the expression on his face clearly challenged.

Fuji smiled back serenely. "You're in such good shape, Mizuki-san!" He commented. Then he pedaled faster, which led to Mizuki following suit.

This went on back and forth until the two boy's legs were fairly flying on the pedals and there was no sound in the room but that of their heavy breathing and the whirring of the wheels.

_You're going down, Fuji Syuusuke_…Mizuki thought to himself as he scrounged up every last bit of energy left in him for one last bit of mad pedaling to show Fuji that there was no beating him.

…or maybe not…

An hour later and they were still at it. Sweat was rolling off Mizuki's body, and he was starting to get lightheaded. Thankfully he wasn't the only one showing signs of wear. Fuji was getting frightfully red in the face. He was beginning to look like a tomato with a thatch of light brown hair.

Mizuki didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to keep it up 'but he'd wear last season's fashions and shave all of his hair off first before he'd admit to that.

"Mizuki-san, I'll make you a deal," Fuji said in between his panting. "Let's stop this both at the same time, all right? That way, no one loses."

"We're…not…competing. I'm just exercising here…"

"We both know you're not going to stop until _I_ do," Fuji retorted.

"Then why don't you just stop?" Mizuki suggested. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the wheels "You don't mind stopping before I do, do you, Fuji-san?" He asked with exaggerated politeness.

"I can go on with this indefinitely, you know?"

"You wouldn't be making deals with me if you weren't already tired." Mizuki retorted.

"I'm not tired."

"Good. Neither am I." And so saying, Mizuki began pedaling even faster, in spite of his aching muscles.

"I wonder where Mizuki-sempai is…" Yuuta murmured. At this time of the night, Mizuki would normally have been back from the gym for dinner in the St. Rudolph cafeteria, but there was still no sign of him, and Yuuta was beginning to get worried. Mizuki was a stickler for routine, and it was unusual for him to break his schedule like this.

"Didn't you hear? Mizuki met up with some guy at the gym that pissed him off. He's still back there. Last I heard they were seeing who could bench press the highest weight." Midori, a classmate of Yuuta's informed him. He then winced, as if someone had just kicked him on the shin, and he glared at the boy sitting next to him.

That sounded ominous. There was a sick feeling to Yuuta's stomach as he pushed away his loaded plate. "Please tell me that it isn't my brother…" he pleaded.

Silence. Yuuta looked around the table at the shifty-eyed faces surrounding him. "Is that why you all disappeared a couple of hours ago? So that you could watch my brother torturing Mizuki-sempai?"

No answer again.

Yuuta grabbed his tray and jumped to his feet. He'd just finish his dinner in his room. Mizuki was going to be raging mad once he got back on campus and he didn't have to be a genius to figure out who all that fury would be directed at. He better go start barricading his dorm room door and stockpiling food, he decided, as he grabbed the sandwich that Midori was about to bite into.

He might have to hide out for a while.


	3. 03

Anything You Can Do…

By: Cedony

Chapter Three

When Syuusuke arrived at Taisei with Oishi, the two of them were herded at once into a massive lecture hall by a smiling young woman who introduced herself as the treasurer of the university's student representative council. She gave them nametags, told them that they were part of tour group five as she pointed to the said number scrawled along one corner of the tag, and shoved in the general direction of where their other group members were.

"I think you'd better head home right after this, Fuji," Oishi suggested. They'd had plans to go out and eat, but he'd been hanging back, allowing Syuusuke to walk ahead of him, and he'd been able to notice the strange way that he was walking. Fuji had told him about yesterday's meeting with Mizuki on their way to Taisei, and going by what he'd been told happened, he thought it safe to assume that that was the cause for his friend's awkward movement. "You wore yourself out yesterday, and now you're going to have to do a lot of walking because of the tour. Give your muscles a rest afterwards, okay?"

"I think you're right," Fuji agreed. Oishi was one of only two people in the Seigaku tennis club that he felt _completely_ safe with, the other being Tezuka. If he was tired, he had no problem letting Oishi know. If he was hurting, and Oishi happened to notice, he wouldn't even bother wasting his time trying to pretend that he wasn't, because with him, there was no need for pretense. He didn't have to be strong for Oishi, or try to be someone that he could look up to, like with his other team mates.

Oishi and Tezuka both understood that he was just another flesh and blood athlete who would understandably be hurting after an intense, all night exercise session. Hurting actually didn't even come close to describing the intense, dull aching spreading throughout his body right now, but his legs were the part where most of the pain was centered. His legs felt like a mound of mushy, pureed beef, which was not a pleasant sensation at all.

Oishi, being as thoughtful as ever, came up beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder, offering Syuusuke that little bit of help along that he needed to make walking more comfortable for him. "I've got a great ointment at home that should make things better. I'll run it by your house tonight."

"Thank you." Syuusuke said, smiling at him. He couldn't help but notice that Oishi's lips were pressed together in a thin line, a tip off that he was holding back on something because he wasn't sure whether Syuusuke was in a receptive enough mood to hear it. "Out with it, Oishi," he prodded.

It burst out of him almost immediately, as though he couldn't get it out fast enough, now that he had Fuji's go ahead. "I think that what you did yesterday with Mizuki-san wasn't a very good idea." Syuusuke, who was fluent in the subtleties of Oishi speech, knew that what he wanted to say was that he thought it had been an incredibly idiotic thing to do, but Oishi being Oishi, couldn't get himself to word it more strongly than that. "You let Mizuki-san goad you into doing things that you'd normally have more common sense not to, and vice-versa. That's not good. You could have really hurt yourself! Mizuki-san, could have injured himself too!"

"You sound like my brother…" Only with a lot less of the swearing and angry yelling that had filled yesterday's frantic late night phone call. Yuuta had scared the hell out of him because he'd thought that something bad was happening over at St. Rudolph's when he'd first answered the phone. He had heard someone banging on Yuuta's door and shouting for him to come out, which naturally led to that conclusion, but when he'd asked, he'd been relieved to find that it was just an angry Mizuki who wanted to 'talk' to Yuuta.

He wondered how that conversation had gone.

"It's like Mizuki-san sucks all the common sense out of you Fuji…" Oishi murmured thoughtfully. He wasn't even going to go into _Fuji's_ effects on Mizuki Hajime, because the nicest way that he could think of to put it was 'reversion to an infantile state of mind'. It was strange how two people who were normally so intelligent could bring out the absolute worst in each other.

"You worry too much." Syuusuke soothed him. He didn't look as though he was taking things seriously, which Oishi wasn't exactly happy with. "If I get this tired after a few hours at the gym, it only means that I haven't been taking care of myself too well. I got the best workout that I've had in a long, long time yesterday." Oishi directed a skeptic look at him, which Syuusuke ignored.

As they approached their assigned group, Syuusuke shrugged Oishi's hand off his shoulder, drew himself up to his full height and began to walk in a far more steady and normal pace. Just a second ago, Fuji had been walking carefully, favoring his left leg. What brought on this miraculous recovery? Oishi didn't have to wonder about the sudden change for too long.

Right in the middle of group five's meeting place was Mizuki. He was leaning against a tall, ash-brown haired guy that Oishi had never seen before, and was looking totally wiped out. He had big, wrap-around sunglasses concealing his eyes, probably in an effort to hide signs of tiredness that they would have given away. Oishi sighed.

"Well look at that! It's Mizuki-san!" Syuusuke sounded considerably more cheerful now than he had before. His hands had unconsciously gone to his hair and he began fluffing it up to get more volume.

Oishi had never seen him doing this before. "What are the odds of that?" he muttered. This was ridiculous. Hundreds of incoming freshmen, broken off into at least eleven other groups and Mizuki had to be placed in with them? It made Oishi wonder if this was the gods' way of telling Fuji something about Mizuki.

He personally had nothing against the man, he did what he had to do and was a great tennis player, so Oishi respected him as he would any other athlete, but there was always that tension that arose whenever he was around Fuji that made Oishi incredibly uncomfortable. Otherwise he thought Mizuki might actually be fun to be around.

The St. Rudolph student hadn't noticed them yet, which was strange since they were only a couple of feet from him now. For some reason, Oishi had had the stupid idea that Mizuki could _sense _Fuji's presence within a hundred meter radius in the same way that cats and dogs could sense an oncoming earthquake.

When he peered through the yellow-tinted lenses of the other boy's sunglasses, he saw that Mizuki's eyes were closed. It looked as though he was taking a quick, upright nap, and the only thing that was keeping him on his feet was the support of his classmate, who was nice enough to act as a bolster.

Oishi would have been happy to let Mizuki catch up on his sleep, but Fuji had other ideas for him. "Yellow and purple! You're really getting into the school spirit, Mizuki-san!" he exclaimed.

Mizuki tensed noticeably at the sound of his voice. One eye popped open, the other soon following once his suspicion was confirmed, and the change was instantaneous.

Gone was the relaxed, sleeping Mizuki. He shoved his friend away from him, straightened up and rearranged his face so that his haughty 'I can't believe I am actually wasting my time on you, you who are so unworthy of my precious time' look was directed on Syuusuke. He'd pushed his sunglasses up onto his hair so that he could be treated to the full impact of this look, and Oishi noted the furrowed brows, the narrowed eyes and the disdainfully curled upper lip before noticing that Mizuki was wearing eyeliner. It really brought out his eyes, and made 'The Look' even more impressive.

Maybe Atobe Keigo would be even more intimidating with his similar 'I am a superior, higher being' chin stuck up in the air, eyes looking down on you from over the bridge of his regal nose look if _he_ wore eyeliner. He should get Tezuka to suggest that to him.

Syuusuke was unintimidated. He reached out and actually ran an admiring hand along the bright yellow short sleeved shirt that Mizuki was wearing over a purple, long-sleeved one. "I really like this yellow shirt," he said. He'd never actually wear one himself because yellow made him look even paler than he already was, but it looked great on Mizuki with his stark black hair.

Yuuta had once told him about going into Mizuki's dorm room and finding a load of flower patterned shirts and sweaters. Syuusuke could also remember seeing Mizuki in a couple that had caused even Tezuka to smother back a laugh, and though this shirt kept with his flower theme, it was rather more demure than his purple pink cabbage roses patterned sweater. Silkscreened on the front of the yellow shirt was a close up picture of some sort of purple flower with gracefully curled petals that looked _amazing_. He'd never seen anything like it before.

"Isn't it amazing? Can you believe that he actually made it himself?" Mizuki's friend piped in.

"The whole thing?" Oishi asked disbelievingly. He couldn't even thread a needle without experiencing some major frustration. He'd had to do emergency sew ups on ripped gym shorts for his team mates a couple of times, because they all seemed to assume that he was capable of whatever their mother's were, seeing as how he was jokingly referred to by Fuji as the 'mother of the Seigaku tennis club', but he wasn't actually any good at it. His stitching always ended up looking like those on the Frankenstein monster.

The friend nodded. "The shirt, the flower design, the photo that he used for the flower design. It was for a home ec project."

"Well, you did a very good job, Mizuki-san." That actually got Oishi a small smile of thanks for the praise, which transformed the sulky looking teenager completely. He was about to go on to say that Mizuki had made a good choice in deciding to go into fashion design when the lights to the lecture hall were flipped on and off a few times, catching the attention of everyone so that a hush fell over the room.

"Go sit down somewhere everyone. And stay in your groups!" The young man standing by the room's light switch commanded.

They did as they were asked. Oishi tried to grab the seat between Mizuki and Fuji so that he could act as a buffer of sorts if the need for that arose, but Fuji maneuvered himself so that he was able to take that spot. Mizuki didn't say anything when he noticed, and when Syuusuke began talking to him about random things, he at least gave brief, monosyllabic replies. The friend, who'd been introduced as Shinsuke, picked up most of the slack in the conversation.

What followed was a three hour speech by the light switch guy about what to expect on their first year, with constant reminders of how fortunate they were to be one of the chosen few admitted into the great institution that was Taisei.

It turned out that he had actually just been elected the president of the university's student council, but Syuusuke didn't find anything that he said particularly interesting since he'd read the handbook that had been sent to those accepted and already knew everything that he needed to about the admissions process and how to register for his classes. So instead of paying attention, he talked to Mizuki, who wasn't exactly acting friendly, but wasn't being completely hostile either.

Twelve o'clock rolled in, and finally they were given a forty-five minute break by the Student President. Syuusuke was about to invite Mizuki and Shinsuke to come have lunch with himself and Oishi when the tallest Japanese person that he'd ever seen approached their group. He had a piece of paper pinned to the front of his Taisei athletics jacket that had a big 5 scrawled across it.

"Group five?" He asked, and was answered by a loud chorus of yeses. He grinned, and held a hand up in greeting. "I'm Sasaki Takuei, and I'll be your tour guide. I'll be taking you around Taisei today, to all the academic buildings, the cafeteria, wherever, and of course, my home away from home; the school's basketball courts. So meet me back here in about forty-five minutes. I don't care if you're just a _little bit_ late, but the most that I'll allow you is 12:53, all right? After that, I'll just leave you behind and you can take your chances with another group."

"Why 12:53?" Someone in the group asked.

"No particular reason besides I like messing with people, so I never say 12:50 or 2:30. It's always 12:53 or 2:27," Sasaki explained with a shrug. "Any other questions people?"

"Yes, are you going to be taking us by the tennis court?" Syuusuke asked immediately. That was the part of the tour that he and Oishi had been most concerned with. He'd seen pictures of the school's courts in the brochures of course, but he wanted to actually see them and maybe walk around on them a bit.

Sasaki scratched at his longish hair, which had been bleached to a very white blond and tied back in a messy half ponytail. "We were actually all warned off the perimeter of the tennis courts. Especially me," he admitted sheepishly. "The thing is that the team has practice today, even though it's Saturday, and their slave driver—who is sometimes also referred to as their captain—doesn't want any disturbances. He's not going to appreciate me bringing a big group of people by." He squinted at Fuji's name tag. "So I'm sorry, Fuji, but I don't think I can do that for you right now."

Syuusuke's disappointment was hard to miss, so Sasaki hurried to give him _something_. "I'm guessing that you're going to be trying for the team, so I'll mention you to Sakito-kun. I'll tell him that I promised you that he'd give you a tour of the tennis facilities. Fuji what?"

"Fuji Syuusuke."

"Oh, I've heard of you before! Sakito forced me to watch a tape that he made of you playing, and that's why you looked a bit familiar." There was a long pause as he looked at Fuji consideringly. "Okay, here's the deal, Fuji. I don't think Sakito will mind if I bring you by for a quick look. That's if you can skip a proper lunch and just get something from a vending machine."

"I don't mind!" Syuusuke agreed immediately. He just wanted to check out where he'd be spending most of the next four years. He'd give up his lunch for that any day! "Can my friends come along, too?"

Sasaki shrugged. "Sure thing. A few extra people won't matter when Sakito's yelling at me."

There was no question that Oishi would be accompanying him, but he still had to ask Mizuki and his classmate. He knew that Mizuki would want to come along, but he was so stubborn that he was likely to refuse something like this just to show him that he didn't need to take any invitation from him. "Do you guys want to come?"

Shinsuke shook his head immediately. "I'm not really interested in seeing a tennis court." He admitted.

"What about you, Mizuki-san? It'd be interesting to see the court and how the team practices, don't you think?"

It would…Mizuki answered silently, but did he really want to tag along as an afterthought to an invitation handed out to Fuji?

Seeing his hesitation, Oishi hurried to convince him. This was a good opportunity, and he didn't think Mizuki should miss it, seeing how well he was getting on so far with Fuji and his similar interest in the Taisei tennis team. "Come, Mizuki-san. It'll be interesting!"

There was a long pause, then Mizuki allowed his curiosity to get the better of him. "All right, I'll go with you. Are you sure you don't want to come with us, Shin?" He'd definitely feel better with his classmate around. He'd feel outnumbered if it were just him with the two Seigaku students.

"I'll have to pass. Akira's right over there, so I think I'll just go eat lunch with him. I'll see you here after, okay? Have fun."

They made a quick stop at the nearest vending machine for 'lunch'. Fuji was torn between a pack of cheddar and sour cream chips or pretzels, and ended up getting the potato chips after a lengthy deliberation process.

Mizuki got the pretzels, and once he opened the pack, he held it out towards Fuji in offering. It was his way of paying him back for inviting him along, and the smile that Fuji directed at him was brilliant as he dug out a few pretzels for himself.

"Thank you!" he said. He pushed his pack of chips towards Mizuki in return. He had deprived himself of the junk food that he loved so much for _so_ long that he couldn't resist getting a few, in spite of the first impulse to say no thank you.

It was a bit of a walk to the Taisei tennis courts, but Sasaki entertained them throughout with stories of the tennis club captain, Nakamura Sakito, who turned out to be one of Sasaki's best friends. They were both majoring in sports medicine, and had become good friends over the years, what with their having so many similar interests.

"Sakito decided to have practices all throughout summer this year. Usually he only has them the first three weeks, but this is going to be his last year in Taisei, so I guess he wants to go out with a big bang," Sasaki revealed. "I don't know why he thinks he needs all that extra practice, though. His team does perfectly well without it."

By then they were close enough to the courts to see the people running all over the place, hear the impact of the balls on the racquet strings and to listen to the loud bantering going on between the team mates.

Fuji fell in love immediately. There were tennis courts as far as the eye could see, and a row of walls that a solitary player could practice against. It was fantastic. There were grass courts and clay, so that you could choose what surface you wanted to practice on, and when he asked Sasaki what a small, nearby building was, he told him that it was a gym for the tennis club.

"_Only _the tennis club?" Mizuki asked. St. Rudolph had a really good gym with great equipment, but the problem was that it had to be shared by all of the students, so he only had access to it at certain times.

"It's for the tennis club," Sasaki confirmed. "It's filled with exercise equipment that's suited particularly for tennis players. The school's got to take care of this club because they always do so well. Anyone on the team can use it, but there are certain times when priority is given to the starting players."

"That sounds great!" Fuji had approached the chain link fence that surrounded the nearest court and had hooked his fingers through it, as he watched its occupants.

There was a match going on that was absolutely taking his breath away. He recognized Nakamura Sakito immediately, because Fuji had watched plenty of his games and he'd always thought the golden skinned, dark haired Sakito incredibly handsome.

As he watched, Sakito set himself up for a serve, every little movement leading up to his throwing the ball into the air so graceful. He _smashed_ that ball into the next court, the sound of the its impact against his racket strings so loud and clear that he must have hit the sweet spot right on. It seemed like an impossible serve to return, but his opponent managed it, retaliating by sending the ball across the court to the corner opposite from where Sakito was standing.

The Taisei captain made a mad dash for the return, sliding across the turf the last few feet to reach it just in time. The ball just barely flew over the net, but the point was that it did.

Magnificent play followed each magnificent play. The ball was sent from one court to the other with such rapid speed that Syuusuke had to put his whole concentration into keeping his eye on it.

It must feel incredible to be a part of such a great game! The adrenaline rush that those two must be experiencing at facing such a well matched opponent must be mind blowing. He wanted that. He wanted to be a part of this, to be challenged and brought to his very limit as so few players in the past had ever really done.

Oishi and Mizuki had drifted over to him and were watching the match with the same intensity that he was. Finally Sakito was able to get one past his opponent. He drove a ball so close to the line that Syuusuke would have thought it had gone out if it weren't for the little cloud of chalk dust that had gone up to show that it had indeed hit the line, and was therefore in.

"He's incredible!" Syuusuke enthused, just a little breathlessly in his awe.

"They all are," Oishi said, shaking his head. He was confident with his own tennis skills, knowing that they were way beyond your average casual tennis player's level, but there was nothing like seeing a big group of exceedingly talented athletes in action to kick you into wanting to train longer and harder. "Fuji, I'm getting the feeling that playing in the Taisei team is like being part of a tennis club full of Tezuka Kunimitsus and Atobe Keigos…"

"Which just means that they'll be needing a Fuji Syuusuke, Oishi Syuuichiro and Mizuki Hajime even more, right?" Fuji smilingly returned.

"I like your confidence, kid." Sasaki told him, thumping him on the back approvingly a couple of times. Then he cupped his hands around his mouth as a makeshift megaphone. "Oi! Sakito-kun!" He called out in a very loud and sing-song voice.

Sakito, who'd just been about to serve, dropped his racquet. He twisted around to glare at Sasaki, looked as though he wanted to start raving at him about something, but stopped himself when he saw Sasaki's companions. "Ten minutes, Kudoh. And that serve didn't count!" he told his opponent, before stomping off to a gate so that he could let himself off the court.

The first thing out of his mouth when he reached the little group and finished punching Sasaki was "I told you not to bring anyone around, you bastard." But he couldn't have been too upset by that because then he was grabbing Syuusuke's hand and pumping it up and down, with a quick 'Hey, Fuji. Glad to see you here.' He moved onto to Oishi and Mizuki, who he also appeared to know of since he greeted them both by name and made some sort of reference to past matches that he must have seen them playing.

"When the three of you are officially on the team, I want you all to keep as far away from Takuei as possible. I don't want his attitude rubbing off on my players."

"You don't automatically _own _their souls the moment they sign up for the tennis club, you do understand that, don't you, Sakito?"

"That's what I want you and them to think. You have to let them believethat they at least control a little bit of their life, when in fact _I _make every little decision for them!" Sakito let out a sinister cackle. He winked at the new kids since they didn't know him well enough yet to figure out whether he was only joking or not. "I always arrange a friendly match between prospective club members and my team mates on the first week of summer vacation. I expect to see the three of you there, and I expect to see you all performing the way I know you can. Mizuki-san, I hope you've been practicing even though you were out of competitions for a while."

"Of course, Nakamura-sempai," Mizuki hurriedly assured him, flattered that their future team captain was impressed enough by his skills to keep tabs on him. "I'll show you what I can do then."

"I'm sure you will," he agreed. He hurriedly gave them the information on the friendly match before going back to the game that he'd left behind after saying his goodbyes. Sasaki then went off to talk to a friend of his, leaving the three of them to explore by themselves.

"They're incredible…" Mizuki murmured. The game had resumed and the short break had rested the two players sufficiently to make sure that they were re-energized enough to make a good show for their audience, and Sakito and his partner weren't the only ones making an impressive show of strength for the Taisei team.

Now that he was seeing it right in front of him, Mizuki was coming to realize just how big the Taisei tennis club was and how much being a part of it might do for their tennis careers. Being faced with this level of excellence was rather daunting, even though he was confident that he could fit right in with these people, and could hold his own, he still had that little voice at the back of his head asking him if he was going to be good enough.

After all, he had a lot of work ahead of him to get back to his pre-break shape, but he was willing to do that. He was willing to do anything that it took.

"I guess we're in for a lot more competition within the team than we bargained for," Syuusuke remarked to his companions.

Mizuki nodded wearily. "I'm up for it." He said, both to reassure himself of this, and to let Fuji Syuusuke know that he was going to be right up there with him, trying his hardest to be worthy of playing with the best.

Syuusuke hesitated. He had an idea, and he thought it was a good one that would greatly benefit him, and probably even Mizuki-san, but Oishi might not like it very much. "I always seem to work out just a little bit harder whenever you're around, Mizuki-san."

"It works the other way around too," Mizuki admitted, as much as he hated it. Fuji goaded him into trying harder than he normally would have when not faced with the guy. He didn't know what it was about him that made him want to push himself harder. Maybe it was because Fuji always seemed at least one step above him? It got so frustrating for him, and made him so much more determined to show him up on _something_.

"So am I going to be seeing you around 'Shape Up' then?"

Did he want that? Fuji hanging around _his _space while he was at his most vulnerable?

Maybe a little bit of Fuji was just what he needed to kick him into even better shape than he was in now. There _was _that saying about keeping your enemies close to you, wasn't there? It sort of made some sense… "I think maybe you will." He couldn't be sure, but Mizuki thought he heard Oishi saying something along the lines of 'God help you, Mizuki.'

"We have to start right away. I'll get Inui to work out a fitness plan for me." This was going to be fun! The advice that Yuuta had given him about trying to mend things between him and Mizuki had been invaluable, Syuusuke realized.

They were going to be in this together for the next few years. The guys already in the team would have their own little cliques, and newcomers such as themselves would have to stick together. He knew that he could count on Oishi, but Mizuki Hajime was an unknown entity.

He had to _make_ things happen with him.

"I'd feel better if you trusted me, Mizuki-san," Fuji said. He tried for the most trustworthy expression that he could work up, to help his cause along, but it didn't change the suspicious look on Mizuki's face.

The St. Rudolph student just smirked. It was going to take a _long_ time before that happened. "I'd feel better if I trusted you too," he told him as Sasaki approached to take them back to the lecture hall.


End file.
